father hear my cry (and may the demons guard you)
by SerenLyall
Summary: "This was going to happen sometime." She'd told herself that since the first night aboard Vader's ship. She'd reminded herself of that dozens of times over the course of the last weeks, trying to prepare herself for when they finally came for her. She had thought she'd come to terms with the likelihood of this particular violence—had accepted the inevitable. Apparently not.


**Disclaimer:** Not mine, and never will be. I promise. If it was, I wouldn't be an overly anxious, stressed-out college student.

 **Rating:** Mature

 _ **Warning:**_ _This is a semi explicit story about an attempted rape. Pretty much all the triggers you'd associate with that are present: sexual assault, non-con, violence, abuse etc. There is also quite a bit of explicit language._

 **Time frame:** aboard the Death Star, after Leia's interrogation but before the Death Star reaches Alderaan

 **Notes:** Once again, I am making an attempt to update this account with my completed works. This particular fic was written a number of months ago, at the beginning of the summer, and was posted to tumblr at the end of May. It gained a really good response from the tumblr fandom, and I'm hoping y'all will like it as much (though it is a hard theme, I know). There is a companion piece planned, but not yet written - so if you like this piece, and would like to see its companion, please drop me a note to let me know. The more positive response I get, the more likely I'll be (and the more inspiration I'll have) to write it.

Most importantly though, I hope you enjoy.

* * *

 **father hear my cry (and may the demons guard you)**

The door slides open with a snaking _hiss_ , jolting Leia from her tenuous sleep. She looks up, peering blearily toward the door from her place curled into the corner of cell's hard bench, fighting down the small spear of panic that bubbles like acid at the back of her throat.

 _I thought they were done,_ flashes through her mind, even as she pushes her trembling and aching body upright. _I thought they were done when they cleaned me up._ Yet, half-broken and half-dead though she may be, Leia Organa will not face her torturers lying down—she is a princess of Alderaan, and she will neither give them the pleasure of seeing just how much they have hurt her, nor allow them to see just how close to shattering she's been brought.

The two men in the doorway of her cell are not what Leia was expecting. They are not Stormtroopers, nor even detention block guards; the two men are dressed smartly in crisp officer's uniforms, the bars on their lapels pronouncing them both lieutenants, while the insignia Leia can just glimpse on their shoulders announces that they are a part of the Death Star's officer corps.

The officer on the left—a middle-aged man, with closely buzzed blond hair and piercing blue eyes—steps into the cell first. There is a distinct swagger to his gait, and his boots clang hollowly on the metal grating as he comes forward. His partner, who Leia distantly gauges to be at least ten years younger than the first officer, enters the cell more quietly a few steps behind, grey-blue eyes jumping quickly from Leia, to his companion, then back to Leia.

"Danelson," the younger lieutenant begins, an edge in his voice that Leia, in her numb and reeling state, cannot quite place. "Are you sure-"

"Shut up, Mik." the first officer snaps, without taking his eyes off Leia. "Don't you wiss out now." And then he grins, slow but fierce, as his eyes flick down from Leia's face, taking in the sheer material of her dress, and the way it drapes thinly over her shoulders and breasts.

A sudden flash of fear sprints through Leia's chest, tightening her lungs and speeding her heart rate before settling into an iron knot in the pit of her stomach. _No,_ she thinks, tensing. _Nononono._

 _This was going to happen sometime._ She'd told herself that since the first night aboard Vader's ship. She'd reminded herself of that dozens of times over the course of the last couple of weeks, trying to prepare herself for when it happened. She had thought she'd come to terms with the likelihood—had accepted the inevitable.

Apparently not.

"Get up," Danelson orders, taking another step toward her. He motions curtly, and then when Leia hesitates for a few seconds, jumbled and sluggish thoughts tangling as they try to comprehend what he told her and what is happening, he steps forward and seizes her arm, dragging her to her feet. "I said get up," he growls. "Now come on."

"Get your hands off me," Leia orders, stumbling for a second as she finds her balance.

She tries to jerk her arm free, twisting as she pulls in the hope of putting some space between her and her captor and making it more difficult for him to grab her again. But the long weeks of sleep deprivation and starvation, the days of torture, and the last remnants of the drugs still sneaking through her blood have left her weak and clumsy. Her attempt at breaking free does little more than put an extra pace between her and the lieutenant. His hand remains firmly wrapped around her arm.

Danelson's grin widens, and he tightens his grip on her, yanking her to a standstill. "I knew you'd be a fighter," he laughs. "Come on, little girl," he adds, giving her arm a tug. "Don't make it harder on yourself."

"Let me go," Leia spits at Danelson again, with every ounce of fury and imperious command that she can dredge up. "Let me go!" She plants her heels against the floor—then abruptly she drops, letting her body fall into limp dead-weight.

For half a second, Danelson tries to hold her. But then his grip loosens, and Leia falls to the floor with a hard _thump_. She tries to roll, to gain her knees before Danelson can come at her again-

And then pain explodes in her side as a boot smashes into her ribs, sending her skidding a few inches along the slick floor, all the breath punched viciously from her lungs. Leia scrabbles, at once trying to both regain her feet and fight the instinct to curl around her stomach and head to protect from a second blow.

A second kick lands solidly in her stomach, and Leia chokes and heaves, clawing at the floor as her entire torso screams in muted agony, her head throbbing and her spine aching and her skin burning. Nothing but a small trickle of bile creeps up her throat, but when Leia forces herself over onto her side, mouth half open and lungs heaving in a pained attempt to remember how to breathe, she makes sure to spit it onto the shining boots coming to a halt mere inches from her face.

The man to whom the boots belong kneels, and then Danelson is shoving his face into Leia's, clamping one hand over her mouth to keep her from speaking—or spitting at him. "Do that again," he says, voice low and eyes flashing dangerously, "and you'll be sorry." With that, Danelson grabs her forearm with his free hand and, with a cruelly tight grasp on both her arm and her face, hauls her upright.

Leia's feet stutter against the floor, and the walls dance and shift uneasily in front of her eyes, jumbling her balance and making it difficult for her to find her footing as she is dragged toward the cell door. Mik is standing in the doorway, glancing up and down the corridor, but when she and Danelson near, he turns and reaches for her other arm. Weakly, Leia tries to pull out of his reach, not all of the fight beaten out of her. But Danelson's grip tightens painfully in warning, his nails digging into her cheeks and the soft flesh of her forearm.

They half lead, half drag Leia out into the empty corridor, and then turn left. Leia kicks her feet against the grating, trying in vain to stymie or slow their pace—but all they do is lift her so that nothing more than her toes can scrape at the floor, and when she tries to twist in their hold, they merely tighten their grip.

The room they drag her to is at the end of the long corridor. A nervous-looking kid standing watch outside turns and opens the door for them, revealing a cell nearly identical to Leia's, save for that it is nearly twice as large. Danelson and Mik give her an unceremonious push, sending her stumbling into the new cell.

There are two more officers in the new cell—an older man with flecks of grey in his neatly trimmed beard, and a strong-shouldered, square-jawed man with a small, pocked scar over his left eye. They both laugh when she stumbles and nearly falls. She regains her balance only at the last second, and then twists so that her back is toward the wall.

"We were beginning to wonder if you two had gotten lost." The older man chortles, his eyes flicking off of Leia for a few seconds as he looks at Danelson and Mik. "Perhaps me and Izac should have gotten her after all."

"She tried to fight us," Danelson sniffs. "It took me an extra minute to teach her a lesson. Don't worry," he adds, lifting a hand in a contemptuous gesture of placation. "We weren't seen."

"You'd better not have," Izac grunts with a slight narrowing of his eyes. "That was, after all, the main point of bringing her _here._ "

"We weren't," Danelson assures him. Then, bringing his hands together, he turns to face Leia, a small smile dancing on his lips. "Now then, shall we begin?"

Leia, who had quietly slid back while the men were speaking until she was safely pressed against the wall, pulls her lips back in a silent snarl. "Stay away from me," she hisses, settling down into a defensive crouch. "If any of you touch me, I swear by all the gods-"

"Don't worry," the older man says, taking a step toward her, and giving her a sickeningly sweet smile. "We aren't going to hurt you."

"Much, anyway," Izac says with a small shrug, coming up to the older officer's right shoulder. "Unless you fight us, of course. Then we make no promises."

"I said stay away," Leia spits. She begins to slide toward the corner, keeping her back firmly pressed against the wall, her eyes never leaving the four men spread out through the cell.

"There's really nothing you can do to stop us," Danelson tells her, joining the other two, Mik trailing after. "You're just delaying the inevitable, and making this harder on yourself. Though who knows," he adds, grin reappearing. "Maybe you'll actually enjoy it."

The four officers move practically as one. Leia tenses and watches them draw near, fresh bile in her mouth, sweat slickening her palms, heart thundering in her hears.

She is terrified. But she is also angry—more angry than she has been in days, in weeks. _They treat me like_ prey, she thinks. _Like I'm nothing more than an animal do with what they will._ And she knows that Danelson is right—that _they_ are right, and that they _will_ have her as they want, and have her however they want, because she is one against four, and even without those odds she is still only an exhausted and half-starved eighteen-year-old girl. But in that instant it doesn't _matter_ , because she will not let them take her without a fight.

Their attack is not fast, nor particularly brutal. But it is effective. Two approach from the side, two head-on, and together they pin her against the wall, constricting her movement and keeping her from getting any leverage. Then Danelson steps forward, eyes glinting, tongue flicking out to touch his lips, and makes a grab for her.

Leia lunges at him, throwing her entire body full-force into his. He stumbles, the breath driven from his lungs with a choked cough, and then promptly falls to his knees with a strangled curse when Leia kicks him, hard, between the legs.

She whirls, clenched fist already lashing out toward Mik, who catches her punch in the stomach. Leia throws herself forward again, this time fingers splayed as she goes for his eyes-

Only to feel a hand grab the back of her dress and give a hard jerk. Leia, balance already skewed for her lunge, crashes to the floor in an awkward roll, the hand releasing her dress so as not to be dragged down with her. She comes up to her knees, breathing heavily and trying to ignore the way her arms and legs shake with the exertion, and tenses for another attack.

Something hard and unforgiving cracks into the back of Leia's head, and for a split second, everything goes dark. She feels herself falling forward—and then there are hands grabbing her, hoisting her to her feet, fastening around her throat, shoving her up against the wall hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs and make her tender ribs throb.

She blinks, and the world in all of its hard light and cruel fear is back. She hurts—her head throbs, her ears ring, and—and oh gods oh gods she can'tbreathecan'tbreathecan'tbreathe.

Izac's hard eyes and are in front of her, his lips twisted into a merciless smile. "Thought you'd try and kill us, huh?" he asks, voice deadly soft. "Thought that'd save you, huh?" His entire body tenses as he hoists her, single-handedly, up the wall another centimeter.

Leia reaches up to claw desperately at Izac's arm, at his wrist, at his hand wrapped around her throat as her vision begins to go grey at the edges. She can feel skin tear beneath her short nails, can feel blood pooling in the shallow gouges, can feel it sliding across Izac's skin. He just grins and presses harder, moving his entire body closer when she tries to kick at him and tries to wriggle her way free, pressing her firmly and inescapably against the wall so that she doesn't even have the room to knee him.

"Poor little thing," he whispers, breath hot on her face. "You scared?"

The hand not around her throat lifts, cups one breast, squeezes. Leia tries to thrash again, something black and sick and vile beginning to climb up her throat. One hand drops to claw, to grab at his free hand, panic and _ohgodsnoit'shappeningit'sreallyhappening_ burning in her thoughts. Vaguely, distantly, through the grey fog in her eyes and the panic bubbling in her chest, she thinks she might be crying, the hot and hated and angryterrifieddesperate tears creeping down her cheeks.

"Izac," the older officer snaps from somewhere deeper in the cell. "Put her down. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be shot for having killed an Imperial prisoner who still had wanted information."

Izac's eyes narrow in a glare, but then Leia feels Izac's grip loosening. "I'd rather not risk having to fuck a corpse anyway," Izac says, and lets her fall.

Leia falls to her knees, coughing and crying, one hand reaching for her bruised throat. It hurts to breathe, hurts to move, hurts even to think. _MovemovemoveMOVE_ shrieks through her breath-starved mind, and her blood stings with the need to _get up_ , to _fight_ , to _not give up_.

Shakily, Leia forces herself to stand.

"You just don't know when to give up, do you?" the oldest officer asks, half a laugh and half a sigh. "Just lie down and spread your legs. Things'll go easier for us all that way."

" _Fuck off_ ," Leia growls.

"The little bitch, let me at her." Danelson's voice, strained and still dripping with pain, cuts into the silence. "I warned you," he snarls, appearing suddenly around Izac's shoulder, face white and lips thin. "I warned you not to try anything again."

He makes a wild grab for her. Leia ducks, half falling as she scrambles away from him, not trusting her shaking body to make another attack. Her feet trip over themselves, her knees half-buckle...and then her shoulders run into the wall at her back, halting her retreat—and only then does Leia realize her mistake for a second time: she has no place to run, and no room to fight. She's trapped.

Danelson sneers coldly, and steps forward, Izac following. "C'mere, little girl," he grins, the pain in his voice vanishing almost completely beneath a surge of cruel glee. "Looks like you're stuck." And then he laughs as he steps closer still, and jerks his hips suggestively, eyes never once leaving Leia's, as if _daring_ her to challenge him again.

Drawing herself up, smoothing her face into the coldest sneer of disdain she can manage, Leia spits at Danelson.

He looks down, takes in the small specks of spittle on his uniform jacket. And then he smirks. "Oh, you really didn't wanna do that," he tells her softly. And then he moves.

This time the tussle lasts even less time than the first one. Leia tries to punch Danelson, only to have her wrist grabbed. Izac moves in hard and fast, grabbing her other wrist and her elbow hard enough to bruise, then using that leverage to yank her away from the wall. Together, the two of them haul Leia, kicking and thrashing weakly, out toward the center of the cell, where both Mik and the older officer wait to help.

They knock her legs out from under her, and dump her onto the floor. Leia bites back a yelp as she lands hard, but before she can even regain her breath she's scrambling onto her hands and knees and trying to crawl back towards the wall. "Oh no you don't," Danelson leers and, grabbing her right ankle, drags her back. Leia kicks at him with a frantic snarl, but he ducks and lifts a forearm to ward off her weak attack. "C'mere," he says again.

The older officer appears on Leia's right side, towering above her as she twists and tries once more to smash Danelson in the face with the heel of her foot. The man kneels, and he makes a grab for her flailing wrists. He manages to seize her left arm, but before he can grab her right, Leia twists reaches up, claws at his face, drawing five long, bloody gouges down his cheek.

He curses, but instead of releasing her and clutching his face like Leia had hoped, he catches her right hand in a vicious grip, and then jerks both her hands above her head. "Let's not do that again," he grunts, viciously pinning her hands against the cold, hard ground.

"Izac, Mik," Danelson says, grinning at Leia as she thrashes yet again, "hold her feet. I get first go."

Two sets of hand replace Danelson's around her ankles, and then Leia feels them jerk at her legs, forcing them apart. Danelson stands. Grin widening, he begins a slow circle around Leia, eyes flicking up and down her prone body, one hand hovering suggestively at the crotch of his pants before twisting up to reach for his belt buckle. He straddles her legs, finishing with his belt, and starting to unbutton his pants.

Leia kicks viciously, tries twisting, bucking—anything, _anything_ to get the men off her, to keep Danelson from kneeling. But she is too weak, and they are too many and too strong.

Danelson kneels. A high-pitched, frantic scream tears its way from her lips as Leia bucks once more, trying to dislodge Danelson, as she strains with every fiber of her being to rip her way free of their grasping hands. He just presses closer, now all but sitting on her legs, then leans over her, the cruel gleam in his eyes feeding on her fear. One hand reaches up, fingers skimming across the smooth cloth of her dress at her navel, then dipping lower, lower, fingers tracing the curve of her stomach, the swoop of her hip.

"Tsk," he clucks, fingers trailing inward, thumb rubbing the small hollow of her hip joint. "That's right." His voice drips with patronizing, rotting-sweet sympathy. "They didn't give you any underwear after your shower, did they?" Leia tries to twist, tries to roll her hips out from under his touch—but to no avail. He is too heavy, and she too securely pinned.

"Just get on with it," the older officer snaps. "Stop playing your stupid games."

"Let him have his fun," Izac retorts, almost lazily. "It's good instruction for the new kid."

"Yeah, let me have my fun," Danelson says. His hand dips lower still, brushing the inside of Leia's thigh, fingers beginning to bunch her skirt. Then his grin brightens abruptly. "Hey, d'you think she's still a virgin?"

"Just get on with it," the older officer repeats, sharper this time.

Leia feels one of the two at her feet shift. Desperation bites at her, driving her up in a savage, twisting buck, trying to use that slight shift to shake her foot free, to wrench her leg up and out. One of the men curses, and for half a second Leia thinks she is going to succeed as Danelson jerks, and the hold on one of her ankles slips. But then the grip tightens again, forcing her leg down once more, and Danelson catches himself and settles more firmly on top of her.

"Guess I'm about to find out," Danelson laughs. "Though that reaction might be answer enough." And, grabbing a fistful of cloth, he yanks her skirt up to her hips.

There is a sharp _hiss_ of decompressed air. It takes Leia, blind and choked with fear as she is, an eternal second to realize just what made the sound. It takes Danelson, distracted by his sadistic glee and anticipation, a second longer.

"Wha-" he begins, sitting up and half turning. "I thought we told Minro to watch the d-"

And then he's choking, a sick, gurgling, tearing sound rippling from his throat. His eyes widen in sudden horror as he freezes, tenses, and Leia can _feel_ his fear—can feel his legs tighten around her, can feel the panic beginning to burn through his entire body as his hands fly to his throat to tear at an invisible noose, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, nostrils flaring as he heaves drily, trying to take in air. He turns, eyes roving madly, and looks at her. All traces of glee are gone from his blue eyes. Now there is only fear, and pain, and-

 _Pop_.

Leia feels the pop through Danelson's entire body—feels it shudder through his muscles, quiver through his bones, quaver through his very flesh. He chokes, gives a horrid, gasping gurgle. And then blood is bubbling from his mouth, dripping from his nose, running in a scarlet river down his chin.

Without another sound, he falls to the side, his entire body going limp as he sprawls, dead, over her hips.

Two seconds later, Leia hears three more bodies hit the floor.

She can't move. Stunned, bound in white-fogged shock, Leia cannot move, even as she hears footsteps thundering through the floor. Even as a dark shadow falls over her, and the corpse of the man who had nearly raped her is lifted off of her, and dumped carelessly to the side.

Not even when, at long last, the steady, rhythmic sound of Darth Vader's ventilator reaches her numb and terror-stricken brain.

Vader kneels beside her. He reaches out and, in an absurd display of gentleness, first pulls her skirt down from where it is bunched at her hips, then brushes one gloved hand against Leia's cheek.

And at last, _at last_ she moves, Vader's cold touch on her face—the touch that for three days had brought nothing but pain and agony and fear—shattering the invisible shackles holding her still. She flinches, tries to pull away—only to be jerked to a halt by the hands still around her wrists and feet, now locked in death.

Sitting straight and looking first at the corpses of Mik and Izac holding Leia's feet, then at that of the older officer holding her hands, Vader makes a sharp gesture with one hand. With a gruesome cacophony of _cracks_ , each and every one of their fingers snap. Leia feels the broken ends of bones move against the skin of her wrists, feels the ligaments stretching and tearing, feels the fingers peel back as the bones themselves are moved by an invisible force.

Leia convulsively yanks her hands free of the older officer's dead and broken grasp. Then she rolls over onto her side, quietly, fiercely forcing her arms to bear her weight as she shrinks back from Vader, from Danelson's corpse, and curls into a tight ball, drawing her knees up to her aching chest, tucking her arms over her pounding head.

Anger and fear and stingingbiting relief war within her, curling and coiling in her thoughts, in her heart, in her churning stomach until Leia wants to throw up, wants to hide, wants to run and run and run until she tips off the edge of this cursed hell and falls into the empty eternity of space.

That is when the shaking begins. She can't stop it, can't control it. It seizes her, sinking into her body like a thorny shroud, setting her limbs to shaking, her muscles to cramping, her joints to aching. She shakes, and the convulsions wracking her body make it hard to breathe, harder to think.

Yet one thought does manage to reach her conscious mind, hazy and half-formed, and even less understood: _Darth Vader just saved me from being raped. But why?_ Then her stomach tightens. _Of course._

Vader touches her again, this time on the shoulder. "Can you stand, Princess?" he asks, voice as deep and dangerous as always. Yet somehow, Leia thinks for half a heartbeat, his voice is softer than she has ever before heard. Relentlessly she pushes that thought away. _He is trying to break you,_ she reminds herself fiercely.

"I won't tell you," she hisses quietly, fiercely, though her throat is closing and her eyes are pricking once more with treacherous tears. "I don't care what you do. I won't tell you."

There is a long moment of silence, in which Leia curls tighter into her protective ball, head tucked and muscles tense as she awaits a blow, from fist or boot or rod.

But when Vader touches her a third time, to Leia's surprise, there is no pain. There is only a hand beneath her elbow and another at her shoulder as Vader slowly, carefully eases her out of her clenched, terrified ball.

"This was not my doing," he tells her, voice curiously quiet. It does not quite sound like the cracking, rumbling thunder Leia has come to associate with him.

"I don't believe you," Leia whispers in retort, silently cursing her treacherous body's weakness, her trembling muscles, her wavering resolve. "I don't believe you."

"Can you stand, your Highness?" Vader repeats, ignoring her accusation.

Leia clenches her teeth, and swallows a pitiful, frightened, pained mewl. _What new torture do you lead me to now?_ "Yes," she says hoarsely, fiercely. "Of course I can stand."

"Very well." With that, Vader retracts his hand, and stands himself, though he does not turn away.

Gritting her teeth, Leia forces her body into a sitting position, bullying her trembling, aching, utterly exhausted body upright. Then slowly, carefully she stands. For three seconds her legs support her—and then she feels her knees buckle, what final dregs of energy she had left after her furious, desperate fight draining away like sand through a sieve. She collapses, and tries to tense in preparation for a harsh landing...

Only to feel strong arms catch her before she can strike the ground. One arm scoops beneath her knees, the other her shoulders, and then Leia feels herself lifted and, like a helpless babe, cradled against Vader's chest.

"Put me down," she demands. But even Leia can hear the exhaustion in her voice—can hear the way her words carry no bite, no commanding lilt. Only spent stubbornness. Raw, prideful stubbornness.

Vader does not deign to give her a reply. He simply turns and, still cradling her pathetically against his broad chest, strides toward the open cell door.

For half a moment, Leia tries to struggle. She is afraid—she _should_ be afraid—of this monster who hurt her. She should be terrified for him to even be near her, for him to be touching her, _carrying_ her.

And the fear _is_ there, lurking at the base of her mind, lodged in her spine, prickling in her flesh. It is there, like a thousand ants crawling over her skin, through her muscles, along her bones. She can feel the fear and the hatred, even as her body yet remembers the tortures inflicted upon her—the tortures her mind _believed_ had been inflicted upon her.

And yet…

And yet, as her traitorous body relaxes into Vader's hold, there is a faint whisper that twines with her thoughts, that echoes faintly in her blood, that rings hollow through her bones. _Safe_ , it whispers, in a woman's voice and a child's voice and in a voice like the rushing wind and the eddying sand and the brightbright light of burning suns. _You are safe. He will protect you._

And that is false. That is laughable. For was Vader not the one who so very nearly broke her? Was it not Vader who killed her ten, twenty, a hundred times? Who raped her mind, as surely as he killed those who had tried to rape her body?

 _I am not safe with him. I will_ never _be safe with him. He is pain, and terror, and death._

And yet, as Vader strides down the prison's corridor with Leia cradled protectively against his chest, she cannot help but relax into his arms. Her head droops, falls against the hard breastplate, and the fingers of one hand curl childlike around the edge of his respirator controls. The thought flashes through her mind that she could end this—that she could kill him here and now, could smash the controls and cut off his breath.

But she…can't. Even as the thought touches her mind, it fades away, lulled beneath that creeping, encroaching whisper, that soft promise of _Safety. You are safe in this one's—this chosen one's—arms._

Leia senses as much as sees as Vader turns, and crosses the threshold into her own cell. She feels him kneel. Feels him lay her gently down on the hard bench. Feels him, inexplicably, touch her cheek once more.

This time, though she still flinches almost imperceptibly, she does not pull away.

"Sleep," Vader commands, and his voice is layered with the deep, rich, compelling power of command.

Leia fights it as much on instinct as true refusal, pushing at the warm veil of sleep that drapes across her mind, tangles with her thoughts, tries to drag her down into the comforting darkness of slumber. "No," she mutters—for one thing she discovered was that voicing a refusal carried a hundred times the weight of a mental one. Then, casting her sluggish, tripping thoughts out for something hard and secure and _real_ to latch onto, to give her strength to refuse him and his command, she adds, "My head. It's hurt." Surely that blow left her concussed, at the least.

"I will guide you into a healing sleep," Vader says, deep voice once more like thunder in her ears and in her head—except this time it is fierce in its intensity, more than threatening. "If you will allow me, of course," he adds—and had Leia's mind not been so scattered, she might have wondered at the lilting edge to Vader's words, lining the thunder and the steady mechanical breath.

Leia stirs. Shoves desperately at the shroud of sleep still trying to steal her thoughts and body from her control. _NononoIwon'tletyouIcan'tletyou you'llhurtmeand-_

"No harm will come to you while you sleep. This I swear, your Highness."

"And I should trust your word why?" Leia mumbles, despite her protestations only barely clinging still to consciousness.

"Have you ever known me to lie to you?"

A long moment of silence. "Known it, no."

Vader nods. "Then sleep," he repeats.

And this time, that tingling warmth of sand and sun and wind rises in Leia's mind, in her blood, stealing her iron bands of stubborn fear and control like poison being drawn from a wound. Vader's command rolls over her like a dark ocean wave, crashing through her mind and filling every crevice of thought and defiance with spray and foam. She feels her thoughts slip, her memories blur and run, mingling and then fading into the grey fog rolling across her mind.

In the last few seconds of consciousness, Leia chokes out one final word—one final question. "Why?" she asks.

But she is asleep before Vader can answer.

* * *

 _ **final notes:**_ _thoughts? comments? I would love to hear from you._


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